1,000 ex-Napocor workers jobless in Transco

BAGUIO CITY—At lrast 1,000 former employees of a state power firm failed to qualify for work at the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, which acquired the country’s power transmission grid, a former union leader of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) said.

Walder Revellar, North Luzon chapter president of the Mindanao Transco Employees Union (Mintrea), said they were advised about the decision only last week. Revellar was among those who failed to meet NGCP standards.

Formerly the consortium of Monte Oro Grid Resources Corp. (MOGRC), State Grid Corp. of China (SGCC) and Calaca High Power Corp., the NGCP promised to absorb all 5,650 Transco workers when it won the 25-year concessionaire lease to maintain all of the country’s power transmission lines, Revellar said.

He said most of these Transco employees were retrenched when the National Power Corp. was broken up into Transco and several generation companies.

The sale of Transco, the generation companies and downsizing of Napocor are part of the industry deregulation required by the 2001 Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).

Revellar said some of the Transco employees who lost their jobs have not reached retirement age but would have difficulty finding new jobs because most of them are old.

“There are many employees who are very young. They would have had a good career [at NGCP],” he said.

Several union leaders like him also failed to make the grade, Revellar said.

“But we cannot go to [the Department of Labor and Employment] to complain because the national grid was [auctioned off] technically to a new company,” he said.

The union had protested the privatization of the Transco grid, saying it could impact on national security.

Toward the end of 2008, the union members started negotiating for access to the transactions related to NGCP’s takeover in January, but they were only assured of fair play once the new firm started developing its manpower pool, Revellar said.–Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon